Is there anything to be learned from racehorse training that can improve human race performance???

No, but there's more from the horse dancing competition that can apply to ballroom dancing.

I bet runners would stop complaining about injuries if more horse training was followed.

Learn to piss better. More firehoseish.

Steroids are effective?

Seriously I will answer no on that question. Training race horses and human runners is basically very similar , there is only a little difference in the biological energy processes. Then you have to take into account that horses are exposed to greater body weight on each leg.

Young males with talent are already referred to as "studs."

The man who can talk to horses wrote:

Seriously I will answer no on that question. Training race horses and human runners is basically very similar , there is only a little difference in the biological energy processes. Then you have to take into account that horses are exposed to greater body weight on each leg.

My understanding is that race horses barely train at all. They are born to run and thats what they do.

I've ridden and trained horses for years (not for the track). In my experience, they are quite different than humans. They gain fitness extremely quickly. They're also more resilient than us and seem to recover faster.

From what I know of my own experience with horses, and from reading about training race horses, I really don't think there is much we can carry over to human running training.

Selective breeding to produce faster runners? That’s pretty much what the horse folks do

I’d be interested in a study on how fast the kids of parents who met on their college track teams are in comparison to kids from “normal” parents

My first good girl at Hughson is 40 now and she met her husband on the track team at D1 U. Their oldest daughter is in middle school and recently ran 5:01 for 1600

Good genes are a nice thing to have.

Breeding

Yea, Boldenone

That weight training is useless to improve running performance.

I do go to race tracks and wager on horse races. Most horse races are 3/4 of mile to 1 1/2 mile. Characteristics of Thoroughbred horse legs are similar to characteristics of elite human runners. Muscular with small knee joints and small ankle joints. No one bred humans into an elite racing body, Thoroughbred horses have been bred obviously. Elite horses are basically milers, Thoroughbred horses train basically like Feed the Cats sprinters. Light training with plenty of recovery.

Thoroughbreds versus humans wrote:

I do go to race tracks and wager on horse races. Most horse races are 3/4 of mile to 1 1/2 mile. Characteristics of Thoroughbred horse legs are similar to characteristics of elite human runners. Muscular with small knee joints and small ankle joints. No one bred humans into an elite racing body, Thoroughbred horses have been bred obviously. Elite horses are basically milers, Thoroughbred horses train basically like Feed the Cats sprinters. Light training with plenty of recovery.

Huh?

Thoroughbreds versus humans wrote:

Thoroughbred horses train basically like Feed the Cats sprinters. Light training with plenty of recovery.

My physicist daughter (Louisa Gilder, "The Age of Entanglement"--Knopf) has researched a book on this subject. It concludes that US race horses are fragile and in-bred and suffer from radically inadequate training compared to foreign race horses. She believes that our horses would perform far better and incur fewer injuries if they trained like US runners, perhaps under Alberto Salazar.

Runners need to eat more hay. It's all in the nutrition, baby!

wow i did not realize i wanted to see a salazar comeback until i saw this comment. that would be incredible. i'm completely serious. al if you're reading this, please pick up the phone and get in touch with some horse people. what have you got to lose?

A horse is completely different from a human. A horse evolved from running away from giant saber toothed cats and other things. To do this they have a reserve of blood cells in their spleen that probably isn't healthy to use but is better than being dead.

Humans didn't evolve to escape, but to pursue. A human runs after a horse, choosing hot weather or deep snow, patiently jogging along behind it until the horse is exhausted and the human kills and eats it. We don't have extra blood to vent from our spleens, but we do have hairless skin that can outcool itself compared to a horse, and snowshoes too.

Running is the wrong sport for us. We should compete at persistence-hunting a simulated prey.

obviousanswerer wrote:

Thoroughbreds versus humans wrote:

I do go to race tracks and wager on horse races. Most horse races are 3/4 of mile to 1 1/2 mile. Characteristics of Thoroughbred horse legs are similar to characteristics of elite human runners. Muscular with small knee joints and small ankle joints. No one bred humans into an elite racing body, Thoroughbred horses have been bred obviously. Elite horses are basically milers, Thoroughbred horses train basically like Feed the Cats sprinters. Light training with plenty of recovery.

Huh?

Huh what? Do you want an example of a typical training day?

Eg. 660 yards at 3/4 effort. Day of training complete.

Eg. 3 x 1 Furlong (220 yards) at 3/4 effort with 15 minute recovery. Day of training complete.

Eg. 2 x 330 yards with 15 minutes recovery at 3/4 effort. Day of training complete.

Maybe 4 or 5 training sessions per month at the most.

Race sub-100 second one mile.